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Frito-Lay v Pringles: Two snack titans on Facebook

By Kacey Culliney , 23-Jan-2013

PepsiCo and Kellogg lead the global snacks market with Frito-Lay and Pringles, but who fares better in the realms of Facebook and why does this matter?

Frito-Lay is the significant global market leader with Pringles taking second spot.

However, data compiled on social media analytics platform SocialBakers show that Pringles is ahead of its number one rival on Facebook.

Pringles’ Facebook page has 22.2m fans compared to Frito-Lay that has 2.3m.

Pringles even makes it into the top 10 fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand report compiled in December – ranked fifth based on fan numbers behind Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Oreo and Skittles.

Why is social media ranking important?

“Customer retention is the goal of business owners and Facebook facilitates this through conversation brands have with their fans. The more engaging and authentic dialogue brands can maintain with fans on the wall, the higher the probability of strengthening relationship and trust,” SocialBakers said.

“One of the biggest advantages for every marketing professional is to understand how their brand is performing compared to their competition,” the social media analytics firm said.

Insight on fan numbers, which brands are the fastest growing and which are most successful in engaging fans is important for brands, it said.

SocialBakers noted that it is the engagement rate that is more important than fan numbers, despite a majority of Facebook brand owners still measuring success on numbers.

'Once you pop, the fun don’t stop'

The majority of Pringles Facebook fans come from the US (18.4%) followed by 7.5% from the UK, 7.4% from Mexico, 7.2% from Argentina and 5.5% from France. The rest of its fan base is global and includes fans from Europe, Middle East, Asia and south America.

For the last six months the snack brand has seen a steady surge in its fan base on Facebook – surpassing the 21m mark in November last year and surging by 14,434 a day.

Its engagement – measured by ‘people talking about this’ – is pegged at 99,937 as of January 21. The brand saw a huge engagement peak at the beginning of December with figures are nearly 400,000.

'Good fun with Frito-Lay'

Frito-Lay also has a majority fan base in the US – but it's more significant than Pringles’ representing 62.7%.

Its fan numbers have also been steadily growing over the past six months, although according to SocialBakers on a daily basis, growth suggests it is minus 119 each day.Its second largest fan base on Facebook is from Canada (3.6%) followed by 3.4$ from the UK, 2.7% from India and the Philippines.

The brands engagement was measured at 11,269 ‘people talking about this’ on January 21. Figures peaked to almost 30,000 in mid-September last year but have been lower since.